Steroids

In major league clubhouses, behind batting cages, on the diamonds and in the grandstands, even in Washington, it seems everyone is talking about baseball and steroids. Everyone that is but Barry Bonds, one of six major league players reported to have received a new designer steroid from a Burlingame, Calif., supplement company, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO).

WASHINGTON - Brian McNamee, the chief accuser of former pitching star Roger Clemens, was left with his credibility hanging in the balance Friday after the latest of four grueling sessions of cross-examination by the defense at Clemens' perjury trial. McNamee, a former trainer, claims he repeatedly injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone between 1998 and 2001. In testimony to Congress in 2008 Clemens denied using the drugs, which prosecutors argue was a lie. Clemens lawyer Rusty Hardin worked carefully through the physical evidence of Clemens' alleged drug use that McNamee provided.

Anabolic steroid use among football players at San Diego State was prevalent leading into the 1981 season, a former offensive lineman from Toronto said Wednesday before the Canadian government's commission of inquiry into drug use by athletes. Michael Ryan, called to testify about his association with sprinter Ben Johnson in 1983 and 1984, said he learned during a brief stay at San Diego State in the fall of 1981 about the use of steroids on the football team. "The use was prevalent amongst offensive linemen," he said.

WASHINGTON — Rusty Hardin, lead attorney for Roger Clemens, got the former pitcher's chief accuser to admit to a series of lies in a day of aggressive cross examination, but did not undermine his credibility with a single grand stroke. Clemens is on trial for perjury, accused of lying to Congress about his use of performance enhancing drugs. Brian McNamee, a former trainer who worked closely with Clemens, admitted that in 2007 he lied to federal agent Jeff Novitzky and the Mitchell Commission, which was investigating performance-enhancing drugs in baseball.

Ha, ha, ha. This is some kind of ironic joke isn't it? As a body-builder I can't legally take steroids. But all meat-eating Americans take steroids (Op-Ed Page, Jan. 30) whether they want them or not--and it's legal! DOUGLAS HERMAN Santa Monica

First things first: I am not in favor of athletes doping with steroids. I am also not in favor of junk science, junkier legal procedure or, junkiest of all, emotion and hysteria driving intelligent thought out of the debate over performance enhancement in sports. Yet these are the central components of our national anti-doping policy. All of them are featured in the latest doping "scandal," the case of New York Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez.

Not so long ago, the way to convey that something was extreme was to simply call it extreme ("X" for short.) There were extreme sports (think bungee jumping), extreme tourism (think traveling in order to bungee jump) and, of course, the "Extreme Makeover" television franchise, which took self-improvement and home improvement to new levels by throwing in hefty doses of plastic surgery and new construction along with the usual hairstyle and paint color changes. But perhaps you've noticed the new overused expression in town: "on steroids.

Reporting from San Francisco -- Colorado Rockies first baseman Jason Giambi and two former major league baseball players testified Tuesday that the personal trainer of slugger Barry Bonds supplied them with steroids. The trainer, Greg Anderson, has refused to testify in Bonds' federal trial and was taken into custody last week. Jurors have been instructed not to draw inferences about Anderson's absence. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, who is presiding over the Bonds' trial, told jurors Tuesday that they were not to infer from the players' testimony that Bonds was using the same substances.

WASHINGTON — Brian McNamee, the key prosecution witness in the Roger Clemens perjury trial, said he had never made up details about the pitcher's drug use, but that some of his memories of it had become clearer over time. During cross-examination Wednesday, McNamee, a former strength trainer, described a conversation with Clemens in early 2004 in which the pitcher asked whether McNamee still had a source to obtain steroids. According to McNamee, Clemens told him, "I want to get really huge, I want to get strong.

WASHINGTON — An anxious wife drove Brian McNamee to hold on to evidence of Roger Clemens' steroid use for self-protection, the former trainer testified at the former pitcher's federal perjury trial. "She kept saying in the midst of a battle royale, 'You're going to go down if something ever happens,' " McNamee said. So as a measure of insurance, McNamee said, he held on to a beer can filled with a used needle, a syringe and a glass steroid ampule he had fished out of Clemens' recycling bin in 2001.

WASHINGTON — Lawyers for Roger Clemens, seeking to discredit a key government witness in the All-Star pitcher's perjury trial, contend that Brian McNamee is telling lies, on which he is cashing in. McNamee, a former strength coach, has said he injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone. Rusty Hardin, the lead Clemens attorney, said in his opening statement Tuesday that the former trainer had become a celebrity as a result of the allegations he made against Clemens.

WASHINGTON — All-Star pitcher Roger Clemens is tangled in a web of deceit that he made for himself, prosecutors said as they fired their opening salvo in the retrial of his perjury case. Not only did Clemens lie to Congress about his use of steroids and human growth hormone, Assistant U.S. Atty. Steven Durham told the jury, but he crafted a cover-up story to mislead legislators and protect his own reputation. Clemens could have chosen to "be a hero" when he testified to the House Committee on Government Oversight and Government Reform and admit his mistakes, Durham said, but instead he chose to lie. "He became trapped and couldn't get out; that's why we're here," he said.

WASHINGTON -- Jury selection begins Monday in the do-over trial of All-Star pitcher Roger Clemens, nine months after the first trial was ditched when jurors saw inadmissible evidence left on a video screen by prosecutors. Clemens was indicted for perjury, obstruction of Congress and making false statements after he told a House of Representatives committee in 2008 that he never had used steroids or HGH - human growth hormone - while pitching for the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Yankees.

The Angels agreed to terms on a minor league contract with veteran reliever Juan Rincon on Sunday, a somewhat curious signing considering the history between the 33-year-old right-hander and Angels Manager Mike Scioscia. Rincon, then with the Minnesota Twins, served a 10-game suspension for testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug in 2005, a season in which he went 6-6 with a 2.45 earned run average in 75 games. Rincon had pitched effectively against the Angels shortly before his suspension, and Scioscia cited him as an example of why he felt the first round of penalties was "woefully feeble.

In Argentina, soybean production is flying high. That means another banner year for farm equipment salesman Carlos Meniavere. His company, Apache, expects sales of its planters and harvesters to increase 20% this year over 2010. Local demand for his machines, costing $75,000 and up, has risen sharply. So have foreign sales. Apache's relatively low manufacturing costs have led to deals with buyers in Brazil, Venezuela, Russia and other markets. "We're going to sell 400 units this year and export to 10 countries.

The Roger Clemens circus has run its course. Call in the clowns. The fat lady is singing. On July 14, his trial was stopped in its second day. Government prosecutors had allowed inadmissible information to be seen. The judge remarked that they had made a mistake that a first-year law student wouldn't. Hard to pick sides here: Bumbling government lawyers or an allegedly juiced-up major league pitcher? On Sept. 2, lawyers will weigh in again with arguments on whether to start a new trial.